Giants

Fri, Mar. 21 2008

I caught a little bit of a show last night on Sundance, "Iconoclasts", that had surfer, Laird Hamilton, and Pearl Jam frontman, Eddie Vedder, hanging out together. I know Hamilton from "Riding Giants", an awesome documentary movie about the history of big wave surfing. Strange pairing, to say the least. It took me a bit to figure out that the guy with the long hair and scruffy beard was Eddie Vedder and not just some tag-along. The two paddle-surf together (who knew Eddie could do this stuff?), ride jet-skis and basically pal around while discussing the meaning of life. I'm not a big fan of Peal Jam, (especially, Vedder's surfing song - I think Laird was just being kind) but I like Vedder more after watching this. There's a funny scene where Laird visits Vedder in his dressing room right before he takes the stage for a Pearl Jam show, and the two hug, and Vedder, who is much smaller than Laird, looks like he's in love.

Seeing Laird Hamilton reminded me of a cool moment back in October when were were exhibiting our CMEpilot products at the AMA CME conference in Virginia. It was near the end of the show and we had some time to kill between crowds so we hooked up my video iPod to our 50-inch plasma display and threw on Riding Giants. Before long, we had a small audience watching with jaws on the floor as these daredevils surf 60-80 foot waves - just incredible.